I often imagine what future dates will be like. But I’m not sure I would have accurately predicted, ten years ago today when Geth and I got married, what our lives would be like a decade on.
I would have been semi-surprised to see myself living in Newcastle. We already knew that Southampton (where we were living at the time) wasn’t quite right for us in terms of distance from family and various other things, but at that point we were hoping either to move back to Scotland or to somewhere like Manchester or Leeds. Newcastle wasn’t really on our radar, and in fact the first time I ever visited was when we were househunting after Geth got the job here, but I’m really happy here and with the life we have in north-east England now. I feel settled.
While I had vaguely thought about running after enjoying the indoor version on Wii Fit circa 2009-2010, I don’t think I would have imagined that I’d have got into the habit of doing it every day – or that the first thing I’d do on our 10th anniversary would be to go for a run in the pouring November rain! I also couldn’t have imagined that I’d have got Geth (who at that point was resolute about ‘walking to work being enough exercise’) into running too…
I would have been surprised (and a little disappointed) to see myself mostly still spending my work days proofreading. Ten years ago, I still viewed my proofreading business as a bit of a stopgap, and hoped that my creative work would support me eventually. That hasn’t happened yet, but I’ve taken a lot of positive steps in the intervening time, have branched out a bit and am now very happy with my portfolio career and its future possibilities, even if it’s still the proofreading that’s the bread and butter. I wouldn’t have been at all surprised to see Geth taking on senior academic roles and winning teaching awards, though I might have been a little indignant on his behalf (as I am now to some extent) that it hadn’t happened sooner!
For our anniversary celebration itself, I blithely assumed that we’d be off in the tropics somewhere! But we’re so busy with work that it’s actually quite impressive we’ve made the effort to go out for a meal tonight, rather than collapsing on the sofa with a takeaway like we usually do these days.
So much has changed. But while I can’t speak for myself, I’m happy that Geth is exactly the same as he always has been. He is my constant in life and I couldn’t love him more. I’m so excited to see what the next decade brings us.